COMPOSITES
Traditionally-manufactured propellers are expensive and have long lead times
ADVANCING SUSTAINABILITY
How are innovations in composites contributing to the sustainability efforts of academia and industry?
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omposite materials have become more and more integrated into various application industries, from aerospace and transport to
architecture and renewable energy. Today, composites offer engineers a solution for a broad range of applications. With new bonding techniques enabling the combination of metals and composite materials, new opportunities have emerged for engineers to choose exactly the right material for the right use. Composites are often praised for their exceptional lightness in comparison with other materials like metals, and can also offer better performance in terms of strength-to-weight ratio. All of these factors paint a pretty
picture when it comes to sustainability, believes Sadik Omairey, Senior Research Fellow and Project Manager at Brunel Composites Centre. Speaking at Advanced Engineering in November, he said: “Net Zero is our destination. Composites,
with their high strength-to-weight ratio, prove very useful when it comes to lightweighting applications, particularly in aerospace and automotive. Tey also have good corrosion resistance, and you can alter their properties to suit what you want to achieve with a particular application. I mention industries like automotive, aerospace, energy and construction as they heavily contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. Te more we use composites to produce lighter, more efficient parts for these industries, the closer we get to Net Zero sustainability.” In addition to lightweighting, composites can also contribute to more sustainable parts and manufacturing processes in several other ways. “Composites can help to reduce manufacturing footprint, they have far less of an environmental impact than metallics, for example, and with lighter parts your final product is going to be less intensive and impactful on the
environment,” Omairey continued. “When we’re talking about aerospace and automotive, structures must be durable. Metals can corrode, whereas due to their composition, composites last far longer and can be used across different projects and applications. In terms of applications, they enable structures that wouldn’t have been possible before, such as the size of blades used in renewable energy applications. Finally, they can be recycled and dealt with in a sustainable manner at end of life.” Based in Uxbridge, the Brunel Composites Centre sits between the knowledge base of academia and industry. Te centre aims to transfer academic research in novel composites processing and joining technologies into real-world, industrial applications. To this end, it is currently involved in several innovative projects in the aerospace and maritime sectors.
Lightweighting acoustic liners is a major challenge
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THE SEER PROJECT Te SEER project focuses on the development of a ‘smart’ self- monitoring tool for aerospace composite manufacturing using silicon photonic multi-sensors embedded using through- thickness reinforcement techniques.
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